1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mechanism for taking a tape cassette out of a cassette magazine, which is arranged to store a plurality of tape cassettes.
2. Description of the Related Art
There have recently been proposed miniature cassettes which are still smaller than tape cassettes generally sold on the market (for example, compact cassettes and microcassettes). Since such a miniature cassette is very small in external size, it is possible to lose it when it is kept separately. Therefore, a cassette changer system capable of keeping a plurality of tape cassettes together in a cassette magazine is proposed.
In the proposed system, at the time of recording/reproducing, the cassette magazine including tape cassettes is loaded into a recording/reproducing apparatus and, within the recording/reproducing apparatus, one tape cassette is automatically taken out of the cassette magazine by a cassette changer and mounted on a drive mechanism to be subjected to the recording or reproducing operation.
Neither conventional tape cassettes nor mechanisms for taking out the tape cassette from a cassette magazine, employing a simple structure, has yet been proposed, and this has been a problem in realizing an automatic tape cassette loading system that uses a cassette changer.